


Take Me Away

by Withstarryeyes



Series: Soft College Boiiis [7]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abuse, Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - College/University, Artist Steve, Bruises, Child Abuse, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Football Player Steve, Howard Stark's Bad Parenting, Howard is abusive, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Protective Steve Rogers, Split Lip, Student Tony, Tony Has Issues, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, student
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-28 23:18:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16251833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Withstarryeyes/pseuds/Withstarryeyes
Summary: Marbled moonlight traces the room in pale shadows and sheer highlights. Tony pants in the quiet, hand wrapped along the mahogany vanity in his room. Sweat is dripping down his forehead and stinging his eyes, reigniting the split in his lip. He winces and stands, legs weak.





	Take Me Away

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober Day 10: Bruises

Marbled moonlight traces the room in pale shadows and sheer highlights. Tony pants in the quiet, hand wrapped along the mahogany vanity in his room. Sweat is dripping down his forehead and stinging his eyes, reigniting the split in his lip. He winces and stands, legs weak. 

The mirror is no better. It doesn’t lie. His stomach’s a painting, strokes of aubergine and onyx over the beige canvas. There’s blood leaking out above his navel and he swipes a hand over it, watching the rich crimson coat his fingers in something a little like evidence. He walks his fingers over his shoulder, pressing on the bruises there and ghosting over the smoking crater of a cigarette burn, ashes still dotting his arm like glitter. It shimmers in the light, incriminatingly small. 

His lashes are sticking together with wet, sloppy tears, and his hair is sticking up on one side, he wonders if blood is tamping down the other side. He considers seeking gauze and antiseptic but he’s woozy and his bed is calling him, The sheets smell like Steve when he settles in them, pulling the periwinkle blanket over his shoulders, abdomen still bare. 

Steve’s gonna find him like this, vulnerable like a stray animal, disheveled. But he’s tired and his fingers still ache from being bent backward, glass shards still echo in his ears like a laugh track. He can’t hide his scars anymore, they litter every part of his body. His arms are like a railroad track of nicks and scrapes from empty jack daniels bottles, his leg polka dotted with tiny burns, half-way healed. 

He begins to hum, a light melody his mother used to pluck out on the piano before she died. He sways to the dips and tilts to the notes and after he’s sung it all, he sinks back into the bed fully, dead tired. Dead. He closes his eyes and sips the darkness like a refreshing beverage, imagining what it would be like to be blissfully, painfully gone. But even in the fantasy, Steve breaks through it all, and Tony can’t imagine him standing in a suit over his casket. No, he thinks, Steve is good and golden and light and he’s the reason he’s still here. 

He misses him, Tony whimpers into the cold, empty space next to him, and then in the next instant, he’s been washed away by dreams that are just bitter shouts drowning him.

The silence Steve comes home to is a confession and he knows what he’s going to find before he even pads into the bedroom, shaking hand pressed to his lips, trying to find solid ground in the flesh there. He wishes for once he’d be wrong, but he’s right as ever as he walks in and Tony’s asleep on the bed, blanket over his pale shoulders, stark against the incriminating bruises over Tony’s torso. Steve walks forward quietly and brushes over them, feeling the heat there. 

He wants to do something, anything, but names are huge here and a young immigrated football star isn’t going to stand in front of Howard Stark and make a difference. He can’t beat up an abuser and the police can’t do anything, how could they? Howard would have an army of lawyers before they could even whip off handcuffs before Steve could even walk in and request a report. 

He sinks beside Tony and strips off his varsity jacket, letting the tears roll down his cheeks as he pulls apart the laces on his converse. The curtains are pulled back and Steve stares into the night sky that haunts him, pale moon, too many stars glaring back at him. If there’s anything out there he doesn’t understand how it could stand back and let something like this happen. 

He strips bare of his t-shirt and pulls on a fresh one, pulling himself together one prayer to the sky at a time, one apology to God on every curse that flits across his brain like the smudges of ash over Tony’s arm. 

He pulls the blanket off of Tony slowly, then sits him up, letting a small smile across his face at the peaceful smoothness to Tony’s face. He can see the crook in Tony’s nose and the golden highlights to his hair from here. He brushes a thumb over Tony’s lip, wiping the rest of the blood off. Steve grabs a shirt from behind him and slips it over tony’s hair, pulling him up into a bridal carry, kicking the excess sheets from his way with his feet. 

He places Tony down on the bed, letting his head roll on the pillow. At this angle, in the moonlight, with Steve’s body casting shadows over his face, he looks like porcelain. Steve wishes he was as unmarked as those dolls but he’s not. He wishes he could’ve known Tony long enough ago to pull him out of that home before this happened, before Tony turned 18, before Howard had an international name. 

But thinking about possibilities just makes him sad and he crawls in their small bed, pulling Tony close with loving arms and tucking his nose against Tony’s neck. He presses a small kiss against his jawline, drags his hands over Tony’s back, listens to the unconscious pur that echoes out of Tony like a beacon. Because Tony is like that, pliable, resilient, willing. He's hopeful and blessed and lets Steve pour all his love into him, laps it up like a healing potion and it gives Steve hope too. If he can make it out of this, then he can get through anything in life and Steve hates that he has to deal with it but he's waiting for that day of unabashed freedom and disbelief when Tony finally gets that call from Jarvis that Howard had passed away. 

Because there isn't any rest for the wicked, but there's karma. And Steve thinks about that empty mansion Howard's passed out in, hand wrapped around a bottle of rum and he thinks about the lively apartment Tony's in, curled up in Steve’s arms. Life has a way of doing that, apologizing for the pain in opportunities and cruel fate. Howard’s fate would be the cruelest. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, I know this wasn't fluffy but I felt like it was something that needed to be established in this universe. I hope you guys liked it and I promise the next fic I post of them will be super fluffy and nice. If you liked this please leave a kudos or a comment and if you want to you can leave prompts for me! 
> 
> Thanks,  
> C


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